Faculty Q&As

Ten Questions: Faculty report from the frontier of management

Fiona Murray

1. Your research positions you on the
frontier of biotech. What are you working on now.
I’m working with a group of companies that are exploring new
treatments for neurological diseases like Alzheimer's, multiple
sclerosis, spinal cord, and central nervous system problems. I’m
also looking at the challenges of bringing products to market in the
biotech industry. I’m analyzing biotech companies in the United
States that are working on leading-edge scientific innovation. How do
they build organizations that continue to do leading-edge science, that
stay deeply connected to universities and medical schools, and that draw
the innovations into the company while moving their innovations toward
chemical trial?

2. What seem to be the common denominators of
success?
Companies must find a way to learn from scientists, and that dynamic can
be very complicated. Many of the people who succeed in making these
kinds of connections have a foot in both worlds. They can move
seamlessly from one world to the other, between the capitalists and the
scientists, and provide a bridge between these worlds.

3. Wouldn’t you fall into that
category?
I am a scientist by training. When I was doing my master's degree
in England, I worked on Alzheimer's — specifically, the
hippocampus, an important part of the brain. I now focus on social
science and science. I study how science works when it has to cross over
to the world of business and to the world of the bedside.

4. Aren’t you also involved in a
project that analyzes the difference between biotech industries in the
U.S. and the U.K.? What are you discovering?
Actually, I’m comparing the U.K. with greater Boston, not the U.S.
There are as many differences between different areas in the U.S. as
there are between Boston and London. The government funding for
biomedical research across the whole of the U.K. is about on a par with
what is happening in Boston. How is it that in Boston, the money and the
science are able to find each other? Why does it work so well here? We
are looking at how the ideas are moving rapidly out of the universities
and into the marketplace.

5. Is that at the root of your project with
the Cambridge-MIT Initiative?
Yes, with funding from the CMI, I’ve been working with a colleague
in England to compare biotech spin-off companies from Oxford, Cambridge,
and London universities (soon extending into Scotland!) to those at MIT
and Harvard. Where and how are they able to recruit their scientific
talents? Exactly where is that place where the business and scientific
worlds come together effectively? The two worlds are more separate in
England — the U.K. is not as effective at bringing biotech research
to market. The project is based on the premise that Boston is a
well-functioning marketplace. It addresses some of the basic issues that
are at the root of the Boston area's ability to get people out of
the labs and working with venture capitalists to get their idea to
market.

6. One key factor in all this, then, is the
venture capitalists?
Yes, we're curious about who they are. How are they able to assess
if an idea is good or bad? How do they know a good idea when they see
one? In part, it's because the venture capitalists in this area
of the country have PhDs in science or medical degrees and thus have
the ability to move across from one world to the other. That is not the
case in the U.K. Also, most of the venture capitalists in this area are
local. Others come from New York and invest in Boston — even though
they have a tremendous medical community in New York.

7. What about pharmaceutical companies? How
do they fit into this picture?
It's important to examine pharmaceutical companies to complete the
puzzle of getting products to patients. And also to examine who captures
the economic value when a project moves into the hands of a
pharmaceutical company, as it inevitably does. If an idea is developed
in a university, which gives the license to the biotech company, and the
biotech company pushes that project through clinical trials with the
help of a pharmaceutical company, who makes the money? How is the pie
divided? At the moment, universities get 5-10%, while biotech companies
get 25% or more, and “big pharma” gets the rest.

8. They say that the people who work in
biotech are a special breed. Do you find that to be the
case?
I do work with a lot of interesting people. There's something in
particular about this industry. People in biotech are in it for a
reason. They deeply want to make a difference. It's very rewarding
to be part of that. You know you're making a real difference to
the world. But we're also talking about risk-takers. From the time
you have an idea until the patient benefits from it is about 10 years
— a very expensive process. People disagree about the numbers, but
it can take $800 million dollars. And the risk is enormous. A lot of
these products fail along the way. People in this business are optimists
and risk-takers. It's necessary.

9. Do you involve students in your
research?
Definitely. MIT is a serious research environment and that reverberates
in the classroom. Students are eager to participate in research, not
just review finished case studies. They understand that this is a work
in progress. They appreciate that they're getting an opportunity
to learn about the different pieces of the puzzle. Small classes make
this possible. Students here have the opportunity to see research
unfold.

I have a Technology and Public Policy student
coming from Singapore to work as a research assistant to help us compare
what's happening in biotech in Singapore. MIT has a big research
project in this area. And I’m also working with an MBA student who
is doing a thesis on the changing accounting practices and regulations
of the biotech industry and the impact of these changes on the
industry.

10. Why do you think MIT is attracting so
many students interested in biotech?
At MIT, there is an exciting interface between the very different worlds
of management and science. This environment is ideal for learning how to
build a biomedical business that takes an idea from the lab, through the
licensing process in the university, and then forges the best alliance
with a pharmaceutical company. Students learn about the finance involved
and how to stay alive, viable, and free of conflict of interest during
this long and challenging process. This is also the educational purpose
of my course which is called “Building a Biomedical
Business” and the premise of the newly launched Biomedical
Enterprise Program.